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Source: gmanews.tv

The Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) will furnish the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) a list of 213 approved athletes from which the government agency can select the 153 bets it wants to support for the Southeast Asian Games.

During Thursday's POC on Air radio program, POC president Jose Cojuangco Jr. reiterated their earlier board decision to approve 213 athletes for the coming SEAG in Laos and expressed their intent to cover for those who would be left out in the PSC-funded crew.

“I don't want to talk about numbers anymore," said Cojuangco.

“We have already said that the POC will be in charge of selecting the athletes and we will be sending the list of approved names to the PSC for them to select whom they want to fund. Kung gusto nila ng 153 athletes lang, okay kami, but the names should come from our approved list," Cojuangco added.

PSC chairman Harry Angping has said the PSC would want to send a “lean but mean" delegation with only the gold and silver medalists in the 2007 SEAG to be sent to the 2009 joust.

But the POC has raised a howl of protest over this pronouncement, claiming that the PSC-announced RP team violates both the POC Charter and the Republic Act 6847 (the PSC Law) in terms of the two bodies’ rights and functions.

Also, upon review of the list of athletes PSC wants to support for Laos, it was discovered that a number of athletes were neither gold nor silver medalists of the 2007 SEAG while some athletes were not even endorsed by the respective National Sports Associations.

The roster was again put under scrutiny by the POC Thursday afternoon and by Friday will be forwarded to the PSC.

Delegation head Mario Tanchangco will also bring a copy of the entire delegation when he flies to Laos to attend the Chiefs of Mission meeting in the next two days.

Cojuangco also added that the POC is working hard to find sponsors for the entire 253-athlete RP team.

“So far I have talked with some friends who said they can finance 30 athletes. I believe there are more individuals who want to help finance this team," said Cojuangco.

The POC wants to send a delegation consisting of 281 individuals, which is 81 more than the approved delegation by PSC and it would need to raise at least P5.67 million to cover for everyone, based on the P70,000 per head cost of sending an individual to the Games